Intelsat ends debt swap efforts, likely leading to a collapse of its planned merger with OneWeb

Intelsat announced it is ending a debt swap effort, a key condition of the $1.7 billion investment from Japanese conglomerate Softbank, and potentially ending its planned merger agreement to combine with OneWeb. Credit: Intelsat

An H-2A rocket successfully launched a Japanese navigation satellite Wednesday night. The H-2A lifted off at 8:17 p.m. Eastern from the Tanegashima Space Center and placed the Michibiki satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit a half-hour later. The spacecraft is the second in Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, which will augment the GPS system to provide service in urban areas and other locations where buildings or terrain block GPS signals. [Spaceflight Now]

SpaceX is ready to launch its first reused Dragon spacecraft today on a mission to the International Space Station. Launch of the Falcon 9 carrying the Dragon is scheduled for 5:55 p.m. Eastern from the Kennedy Space Center. This Dragon first flew on a cargo mission in 2014, and was then refurbished to fly again. Some components, such as the spacecraft’s heat shield, were replaced, but the company said the “majority” of the spacecraft has previously flown. The Dragon is carrying more than 2,700 kilograms of cargo, primarily scientific investigations and related hardware, to the station. [SpaceNews]

Stratolaunch rolled out its giant aircraft for its air-launch system for the first time. The aircraft moved out of its hangar at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California Wednesday in preparation for ground tests in the coming weeks and months, followed by flight tests. The twin-fuselage aircraft is the largest in the world by wingspan, and is powered by six jet engines. Stratolaunch, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, originally developed the aircraft to serve as the platform for a rocket that could launch medium-class payloads, but the company initially plans to use it for launching the far smaller Pegasus XL from Orbital ATK. [SpaceNews]

NASA has renamed an upcoming mission to the sun after a space scientist. NASA said Wednesdaythat its Solar Probe Plus spacecraft will now be known as the Parker Space Probe, after University of Chicago physicist Eugene Parker. In the 1950s, Parker predicted the existence of the solar wind and shape of the sun’s magnetic field, which NASA spacecraft confirmed in the 1960s. It’s the first time NASA has named a spacecraft after a living scientist. The spacecraft is on schedule for launch in mid-2018. [SpaceNews]

Ruag Space has opened a new factory in Alabama. The company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday on the 130,000-square-foot factory in Decatur, Alabama, near ULA’s rocket assembly facility there. Ruag Space plans to hire 100 people to work at the factory to make composite structures for launch vehicles. [Huntsville (Ala.) Times]

Alaska Aerospace Corp. has “turned the corner” and found new business. The company hit a low point in 2014 when a failed missile test damaged its launch complex on Kodiak Island. That facility has been rebuilt and the company has found additional business, including providing range support for Rocket Lab’s recent Electron launch from New Zealand. Alaska Gov. Bill Walker recently released $2.2 million earmarked for launch site improvements. [AP]